Line-up/Musicians

About this release

August 29th, 1989Metal Blade

Reissued in 2008 with a bonus disc with the following tracklist:

1. Part Of The Machine 1 (demo) (7:03)2. Through Different Eyes (demo) (4:20)3. Static Acts (demo) (4:27)4. A World Apart (demo) (5:38)5. At Fates Hands (demo) (6:11)6. The Arena (demo) (3:52)7. Chasing Time (demo) (4:06)8. Nothing Left To Say (demo) (8:06)9. Part Of The Machine (demo) (8:03)10. Nothing Left To Say (demo) (4:51)

Total Time: 56:37

The 2008 Reissued also has a bonus dvd with the following tracklist:

Allentown, Pa December 2, 1989

1. Fata Morgana2. Part Of The Machine3. Silent Cries4. Static Acts5. Through Different Eyes

FATES WARNING PERFECT SYMMETRY reviews

Specialists/collaborators reviews

FATES WARNING is my favourite Prog-Metal band and what i find very cool with them is that my three favourite FATES WARNING albums are all completely different from one another. "Awaken The Guardian" is heavy and dirty sounding with the unique vocals of John Arch, while this album is more complex and a very influential Prog-Metal album. Zonder makes his first appearance for the band on drums here and Kevin Moore guests on keyboards. "Disconnected" my other top three is more atmospheric and less Metal but i love that record. I'm sure this record along with "Operation Mindcrime" had a big influence on DREAM THEATER. This album will always be special to me as well for leading me into the world of Progressive Rock. I know that's probably a strange statememnt but i bought this guitar magazine because it had a list of the 50 best guitar albums of the eighties in it and for some reason i kept going back to this album and band i'd never heard of. Finally for the first time in my life i went on-line to search out a band which led me from this band to DREAM THEATER then onto Prog bands i'd never heard of and my world changed for the better. Anyway back to this album and i feel Ray's vocals are much better here compared to "No Exit" plus i love that twin lead guitar attack from Matheos and Aresti. And Zonder is lights out and one of my favourite drummers. "Through Different Eyes" and "At Fates Hand" are my two favourite tracks. I remember several years ago driving into the ball park where my son was to play baseball and i had this album cranked. This parent who was high most of the time and into Classic Rock came right over wondering what i was listening to. No he never heard of them(haha) not surprisingly but he loved their sound. Masterpiece number two for this band.

Although I do appreciate most of Fates Warning's albums prior to this, I've found that I just don't see the appeal of Perfect Symmetry. Sure, I can tell that it's an order of magnitude more complex than their earlier work - thanks, perhaps, to the arrival of new drummer Mark Zonder, who shows a mastery of a range of tricky time signatures over the course of the album. But with this additional complexity also comes a certain level of obfuscation.

It's a technically advanced piece, sure, but it just doesn't move me emotionally in the way that other creators of complex music - from Atheist to King Crimson to Yes to Frank Zappa - are regularly able to. It leaves me emotionally numbed rather than evoking any response, and the riffs lack forcefulness, power, and aggression - and most metal riffs really need at least one out of those three qualities, if not the whole set. On top of that, the production is rather thin and unappealing. No, on the whole I just don't get the appeal. Ah well.

Musically, this is a very interesting and challenging album, which excels in technicality and top notch musicianship. There is plenty of melody and plenty of tasty twin guitar harmonies and guitar solos - and a lot of really tasty and different (without being totally quirky) guitar riffage. This does not mean that "Perfect Symmetry" is a straight pop metal album - far from it. As mentioned the music is quite technical (especially Zonder's drumming), and the compositions are also quite complex compared to the commercially succesful genres of heavy metal at the time.

As with virtually all other early Fates Warning albums, the vocals may take some getting used to, but once you're there, you can't imagine it any other way. The only problem is the production in that, as is typical of metal releases of the 1980s, there's why too much reverb in general, and specifically on the drums - the snare especially (the cymbals sound very nice though); it is not as bad, however, as some other 80s metal releases I've heard, and it is not like the production ruins the listening experience at all.

I'd recommend this album to fans of progressive metal and to those who like a bit of melody in rock but are looking for rock music that has more to offer.

Members reviews

I have been a big fan of Dream Theater for some time and more recently a big fan of some of Queensryche’s work. I have discovered Fates Warning recently too. Perfect Symmetry is less accessible than Dream Theater or Queensryche, but is definitely in the essential masterpiece category. The music of Perfect Symmetry is a fascinating fusion of Ray Alder’s sometimes power metal voice, Mark Zonder’s singularly impressive drumming style matched seamlessly by Joe DiBiase’s bass playing, the twin metal guitars of Jim Matheos and Frank Aresti, and some fine classical sounding violin and keyboard (Kevin Moore – at that time of Dream Theater) passages.

Fates Warning’s Perfect Symmetry was my first experience in exploring Fates Warning music. At that time, I couldn’t enjoy the beauty and complexity of their music. It was around 13-14 years ago when I was in the high school and music to me –at that time—meaning only fast and loud music. A couple of years ago I started re-collecting my Fates Warning collections and recently I got the cd version of this album. It stunned me the first time I (re)heard the whole 8 songs. To be honest, the only song that got into was only “Through Different Eyes” because it was the most radio-friendly track from this album. Now I can appreciate other songs as well. “Part of The Machine” is a beautiful opening song, while “At Fate’s Hands” and “Nothing Left To Say” are my all-time FW’s songs. Complex compositions and sometimes you find it dark and cold, this album is definitely a great progressive rock album. Of course, it took several careful listening before being able to appreciate it. I did.